Last days of gnome

WHO would have thought that the knock-on effect of that container ship, the Ever Given, blocking the Suez Canal, would lead to a shortage of garden gnomes? One garden centre manager said he hadn’t seen a gnome in six months, neither plastic, stone nor concrete. He was quite upset.

It’s a serious problem. Apparently there’s a new clientele looking for them, posher folk probably, who are snapping them up as they become available. This pandemic has done funny things to people.

And there’s been a shortage of materials coming in from the Far East and that blockage has just exacerbated the problem.

My old boss, the peerless Brian Groom, recounts that the EU used to give a gift to journalists at summits. At one summit in Ghent, the gift was an unpainted garden gnome. Not this year.